April 03rd, 2011

Bung with his second wife, Zizette Samad

Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin an MP in Malaysia recently made sexist remarks about female drivers. Specifically he said during a meeting in parliament, “Some women drivers drive slowly and seem oblivious to traffic.” When a female colleague accused him of discrimination, according to the Malaysian Star Bung “replied that she was politicising road safety issues and told her to sit.” His comments have caused outrage across the globe.

This is also not the first time the MP has made sexist statements. In 2008, the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG) had listed Bung as one of the many sexist MPs. People have denounced his statements and there are calls for him to resign.

There has been an issue with road accidents in Malaysia which sparked Bung’s speech. While his comments are simply sexist they are also grossly factually inaccurate. In 2009, men were involved in more than 2.4 more crashes than women (244,336-men/103,153-women).